Huawei Ascend P1 out now on Vodafone

The slim smartie is free on a £26 a month contract

The handset has been a long time coming, seeing as it was first announced back at CES in January.

It's one of the slimmest smartphones around, standing just 7.69mm thick. And it's pretty affordable too, being free on a £26 a month contract.

Chinese company Huawei has traditionally offered budget mobiles, but this is a step-up for the brand. The Ascend P1 has a soft-touch matt finish, and doesn't scrimp on the specs.

It comes running Android Ice Cream Sandwich, but there's no word on whether it'll get the upgrade to Jelly Bean anytime soon. The Super AMOLED (960x540-pixels) screen is 4.3-inches. Inside is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. And on the back sits an 8MP camera, while a 1.3MP front-facer takes care of video calling duties.

The Ascend P1 scored a very respectable four out of five in our review.

ICS on a budget

It joins the ZTE Grand X, which is another budget Ice Cream Sandwich handset that launched this month. The Grand X is slightly less powerful than the P1, with a dual-core 1GHz processor inside. The screen is still 4.3-inches, but the camera isn't as good either, being 5MP to the P1's 8MP.

It's also slightly more expensive, starting at £27 a month.

So while Jelly Bean may not be on as many handsets as we'd like, at least it is pushing down the price of those coming with Ice Cream Sandwich.